


The Glory and the Dream

by florencedrunk (spokenitalics)



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Purple Prose, post-season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-01-23 04:58:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12499276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spokenitalics/pseuds/florencedrunk
Summary: "You will never be alone again," he promises. "I will love you till time has lost all meaning.""Yes," she says, baring her throat to him, to Dracula."Do you accept me?""I accept myself."She smiles as he kisses her neck, smiles as he bites her, smiles as he drinks her blood. He doesn't know better than to trust a trickster, than to let the poison of the Scorpion inside his veins.





	The Glory and the Dream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blackbird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackbird/gifts).



> I love Penny Dreadful — I do — but I wasn't completely satisfied with how it ended, especially in regards to Vanessa. Not because she didn't get a happy ending (in some way, I suppose she did), but because I desperately wanted her to do something more than surrender to the darkness or to destiny or whatever. Because her story was one of oppression and trauma and abuse and I didn't want anything more than seeing her WIN and BE HAPPY. So, here’s my version of the events. Maybe it's not better than what happened in the finale, but I like it a lot more.
> 
> Thanks to the amazing [within_a_dream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/within_a_dream), [aurilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly) and [Zoi no miko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoi_no_miko/pseuds/Zoi%20no%20miko) for being my betas for this fic!

 

 _—But there's a tree, of many, one,_  
_A single field which I have look'd upon,_  
_Both of them speak of something that is gone:_  
           _The pansy at my feet_  
           _Doth the same tale repeat:_  
_Whither is fled the visionary gleam?_  
_Where is it now, the glory and the dream?_   

**— William Wordsworth (Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, 1807)**

 

* * *

 

Standing in the House of the Night Creatures, Vanessa realises how accustomed she's become to fear. And one would. She's seen her best friend — her sister, even more than that — reduced to a vile creature of thirst. She's witnessed a man turn into a beast hungry for flesh and blood. She's faced the Devil as he wore her face in an attempt to seduce her with the promise of a happy life. She's survived all this, and made of darkness her favourite hiding place, of fear her most trusted companion.

But she's not afraid, not right now, in this room full of predators, of panthers as black as the night, of spiders as poisonous as they are small, of wolves with their heads bent towards the ceiling to howl at the never coming moon. And before her, the Dragon, the vampire, the most dangerous predator, the most horrible animal, the most despicable creature. She's angry, and she's tired, and more than anything else, she wants it all to stop. But she's not afraid. Not at all.

"This is the only mercy I can offer you," she tells him. Her arm is raised, gun pointing right at that heart he claims belongs to her. That heart is still, the stories say. But she's felt it beating under her hand, just like she's felt the warmth of his skin, the kindness of his touch.

"Then do it," he says, unmoving. "Better to die now than walk another day without you."

Such a liar, he is. Such a masterful weaver of tales. She looks at his mouth as he speaks, at those teeth that held Mina's neck in their grip, breaking her pure, white skin, revealing the warm blood beneath, bending her to his will.

"So, it's a love story, is it?" she asks.

"You know it is," he says, taking half a step towards her, pressing his chest against the barrel of the gun. "We have been shunned in our time, Vanessa. The world turns away in horror. Why?" He gives her a second to let the words sink in, to be sure the question is clear in her mind. "Because we're different, ugly, exceptional. We're the lonely Night Creatures, are we not? The bat, the fox, the spider, the rat."

"The Scorpion."

"The broken things."

"The unloved."

The faintest hint of a smile appears on his face. "There's one monster who loves you for who you really are, and here he stands," he tells her, his voice silky and warm. "I don't want to make you good. I don't want you to be normal. I don't want you to be anything but who you truly are." He pauses, just for a second. "You have tried for so long to be what everyone wants you to be, what you thought you ought to be, what your church and your family and your doctors said you must be. Why not be who you are, instead?"

"Myself?" she asks. Who is she, truly? Not the little girl who gave names to stuffed animals to make them alive. Not the girl trapped in the cell with the padded walls, so lost and alone. Not the woman who walked the moors with the Cut-Wife, so sure of being the most frightening thing to ever set foot on those paths. So many lies and secrets, in her own home. So much kindness, and so much evil, wearing the same face. So much cruelty, as the hot iron branded her a sinner. So much suffering, so much pain. Enough to consume her? Enough to leave her an empty shell? Enough to destroy everything she is, or used to be?

"You will never be alone again," he promises. "I will love you till time has lost all meaning."

"Yes," she says, baring her throat to him. To Dracula.

"Do you accept me?"

"I accept myself."

She smiles as he kisses her neck, smiles as he bites her, smiles as he drinks her blood. He doesn't know better than to trust a trickster, than to let the poison of the Scorpion inside his veins.

 

* * *

 

Ethan finds her at the centre of a white-bricked room, surrounded by hundreds of burning candles, each flame flickering lightly, slowly consuming the wax. He's never felt colder, or more lost in the dark.

"It hurts me more than I thought it would, seeing you," Vanessa says as she turns around, her voice but a whisper. Her eyes are surrounded by dark circles. The white of her skin matches the gown she's wearing.

He takes a step forward. "You need to come with me, now."

"And go where?" she asks. "They will hunt me to the end of days."

"I can protect you."

"No, you can't. No one can."

"Then we'll fight him."

"I _am_ fighting."

"Vanessa, please."

"Vanessa," she repeats, moving towards him. "And where is she? When did we lose her, Ethan? She was standing in a quiet room, gazing up at a cross. She reached out, took it from the wall, and put it in the fire. And then she was lost. And so alone."

"You're not alone, you never were. I—"

"My battle must end, you know that. Or there will never be peace on Earth," she tells him, reaching for his gun, pointing it at her stomach. "Let it end."

"Don't ask it." _Not of me. Not this. Not you too._

"I don't have to," she says. "You know you have a destiny. It's why we first met. It's why you're here now."

"No!"

"You must do it now. Kill me, and he will turn to dust. Kill me, and his brother will be banished from this Earth forever."

"I can't—"

"Let there be light, Ethan," she begs. "Let it end, with a kiss."

The wolf inside him growls, scratching at the walls that keep him trapped. But there's no escape. It was always going to end like this, with the two of them looking into each other's eyes, and the end of days hanging over their heads. It's destiny: the reason they met, the reason they've always felt so pulled to each other. This love growing inside him like a sweet parasite is but the fruit of a series of choices that weren't really choices. But it is love, nonetheless, like he's never felt before. And his love is asking a sacrifice of him. He must comply, no matter the cost.

"With a kiss," he repeats, eyes and voice drowning in his own tears. He grips the gun tighter. "With love."

"With love."

 

* * *

 

Vanessa dies with her eyes closed in a room full of light, and for one moment only, she's at peace.

 

* * *

 

It ends with six lonely souls standing in a graveyard, none of them speaking, all of them reading the name on the stone again and again. They're like a family, almost. One that shares not the blood in their veins, but the blood on their hands. United by the sorrow they share, by the darkness they've seen, by their love and respect not for each other, but for someone far greater and better than all of them. This is her legacy. This, and the whole world.

Dr Seward is the first one to leave. Kaetenay and Miss Hartdegen follow her. Then Victor goes, and after a while, Sir Malcolm. Ethan remains alone, unable to move.

"How did she die?" someone asks.

He looks up to see a man dressed in black, but not in the way someone would dress for a funeral. His skin is pale, almost impossibly so, and his eyes are a mixture of amber and blood red. There are scars on the side of his face, which he has attempted to hide with his dark hair, and leather gloves covering his hands.

"It doesn't matter how she died," he replies. "What matters is that she died herself."

The man doesn't answer, but he doesn't leave either.

"Did you know her?" Ethan asks.

"I did. Not as well as you did, I suppose. But we... talked, sometimes." Then, like an afterthought, the man adds, "She taught me how to dance."

"She taught me, too," he says, surprising himself. "Or tried to, anyway."

"She was kind."

"She was," Ethan repeats, finally giving his back to the stone. He never thought kindness would taste so bitter.

"Did she find him, in the end?" the man asks just before Ethan starts to walk away. "She told me she was looking for her God. Did she find him?"

"He found _her_ , I like to think."

 

* * *

 

"I didn't expect to see you so soon, dearest friend."

"Mina?" Vanessa asks, shielding her eyes from the blinding light all around her. It's no use. She can't see anything. "Is that you?"

At first, silence. Then the voice says, "I hated you, you know?" It's Mina, definitely. But how? "You ruined me, my life, my future."

"I'm—"

"But it wasn't your fault, I suppose," she continues, still hidden in the cold whiteness. "You simply couldn't help it, couldn't keep that darkness inside of you from devouring everything you touched."

"Mina, I—"

"Even when I tried to escape it, escape _you_ , it found me all the same."

"I'm sorry," she says. "I'm sorry."

She repeats that over and over again, asking forgiveness for all she did and all she failed to do. For the secrets and the betrayal and for her weakness, most of all.

"Are you, you wicked thing?" Mina asks. "Do you even know what that means? To be sorry? To feel regret?"

"Do you?" Vanessa asks the void before her.

"I regret meeting you. Always will."

"I tried to find you. To save you." _I need you to know that._

"I was lost the moment I met you, all those years ago. That open gate was my gallows, the stake I was tied to as you set the whole world on fire."

"I killed _him_. I avenged you."

"And you died, shot by the man you loved the most in the world. There's irony in that, don't you think?"

"If we're both dead, where are we, then?" she asks. "What is this place?"

With a laugh, Mina is suddenly there, as beautiful as ever, holding Vanessa's hands in her own. "I should think you know better than me, dear Vanessa."

 

* * *

 

"If you're looking for a cure for your... condition, Miss Hartdegen is the one you should go to."

"There's no cure for me, Dr Seward."

"Then, why are you here?"

"I want to learn how to control it."

 

* * *

 

In the old days of Egypt, she was Amunet, the hidden one, craved by two brothers who both needed her to gain power over the world. In time, the brothers became known as Lucifer and Dracula. But what happened to Amunet? Who did she become in those centuries untold? What names did she have before Vanessa? Where they also tempted, all those women? Did they all know the same unhappiness she did?

The only thing she knows is that she's the last one. She made sure of that. The Wolf of God was born to protect the Scorpion from the Serpent and the Bat, to free her, to break the otherwise endless cycle of death and rebirth. Ethan was the only one who could help her defeat both Lucifer and Dracula once and for all, who could stop Vanessa from being born once again. But what about the others? Did they all have their own Wolf? Did they all understand who and what was after them? Did they die in an attempt to escape the darkness, or did they take their own life like Vanessa herself had thought so many times of doing, the only thing stopping her the knowledge that another woman would suffer in her place?

Vanessa died, and her death was her victory, not only for herself, but for all them — for all the nameless women cursed to be loved by evil.

 

* * *

 

The orange butterfly comes sauntering out of the darkness, its wings reflecting a light that's not coming from anywhere. Ethan follows the animal as it flies past the fog and the city and the forest.

Animal. What a strange word to use for a creature so delicate. When he thinks of animal, his mind paints a picture of teeth and claws and blood. When he thinks of animal, he thinks of the moon and the fury and the wet leaves under his paws. He thinks of his prey, of his fangs as they dig into their flesh. He thinks of the wolf, endlessly running after the scorpion, of the serpent slithering in the shadows, of the bat flying above. He thinks of a gun pressed against white fabric, and of a prayer ending with a bang.

"Vanessa?" he calls out to the void. He doesn't know why he does that. Or maybe he doesn't want to admit it. "Vanessa?"

 

* * *

 

A trail of blood, roses growing on snow, leads Vanessa to an enormous tree with leaves like white flames. It has only two branches, each just as large as the trunk. Between them, a beating heart is pierced by a nail to the bark, blood gushing copiously from the wound.

As she gets closer, the light gets stronger, and she sees things more clearly. With every step, the doubt blooms in her minds that it's not a tree she's walking towards, and that the leaves really _are_ flames. And then, as if her eyes had finally adapted to the light, she sees it: she's standing before a crucifix, a giant wooden monument to the martyr of all martyrs.

She kneels.

"Is this what it's like to find peace, Father?" she asks, with her head bowed. "Is this what it's like to be free?"

No answer, as always.

"I searched for You my whole life, and for my whole life only darkness answered my prayers," she continues. "Is this what You decided for me? To face trials and tribulation for my love of You? To be beaten down at every turn? To suffer and to bleed and to die, for You?"

More silence.

"But I loved You," she says. "Oh, how I loved You. Not because I was afraid, or because I needed you, but with my whole heart, with my whole body, with my whole soul. And still, You made it so hard for me to not to hate You, not to believe You had abandoned me. Why, Father?

A weight on her head. Thorns pricking her forehead. She lifts her gaze up to the centre of the cross, where the light shines the strongest, and the bleeding heart beats as one with her own.

"Rejoice and celebrate, because great is your reward in heaven," she says, as if a voice was whispering the words in her ear. "For in the same way they persecuted the prophets before you."

 

* * *

 

Through the open window, the butterfly flies inside Ethan's bedroom, flapping its orange wings as it draws circles in the air. It lands on his hand, and stays there for just a second before turning to dust, silvery and light. And then Vanessa is there, sitting at the foot of the bed, hands folded on her lap, hair loose on her shoulders. She's looking down at him, her eyes beacons of blue light, oceans unexplored in which to gladly drown.

"You're dead," he says.

She smiles, of course.

"I'm dreaming," he concludes as he sits up.

"Yes, and no," she says, with a voice that couldn't belong to anyone but her. "You _are_ asleep, but you're not imagining me."

"But you're dead," he repeats.

"So you insist, dear Ethan. And yet, here I am."

"How?"

"Do you believe in Heaven, Ethan?" she asks. "A world beyond what we know and what we dream? A place of light, never seen, but always felt?"

"Do you?"

"Not really, not how most people intend it. But I struggle to find a better name for this place."

Ethan reaches for her, taking her hands in his. It's warm. Alive. "You're here."

"I'm here."

"Are you... are you happy, Vanessa?" he asks.

"I'm not suffering," she says, averting her eyes. She gets up, fixing her gown — the same one she wore when she died, Ethan realises, but with no trace of blood on it. "I want to show you something."

And just as she utters those words, the room around them starts moving, spinning, changing into a place he has feared to dream of since the night he killed Vanessa. The bricks become wood, and London falls away, becoming silent and barren. The bed vanishes, and a lit fireplace appears, bringing warmth and the smell of herbs and meat.

"We were happy here, weren't we?" she asks him, moving around the newly created space with her arm raised. Her fingers brush against one of the many wind-chimes hanging from the ceiling, a metallic noise echoing throughout the cottage. Outside, the quiet solitude of the moors is disrupted by the primordial violence of a storm. "Until we weren't, that is."

"Yes, until we weren't."

"It feels like a hundred years ago, doesn't it?" she asks, moving towards him. "But I remember it well, how it took fire and wind and water for us to kiss."

"And night itself to pull us apart."

Vanessa's smile doesn't drop. She looks to the side, through the window, at the big grey clouds extending well past the horizon. "Perhaps we should've stayed here, away from London, from the shiny distractions and the dark mysteries."

"I could've told you all my unheroic stories."

"We could've lived the rest of our days dancing and shooting."

"We could have."

She smiles again, only for a moment. "Alas, I'm afraid I wouldn't have made a great little wifey."

"No, I think not," he says. "But that's not what I wanted from you."

"And what did you want, Ethan? Tell me," she demands, looking right into his eyes. "We're alone. Speak quietly, but tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"Tell me what you wanted from me, what you dreamed of when you looked at me," she says. "We can whisper about those things that hurt us."

So many things he could say. So many secrets he could unveil. So many thoughts swarming in his mind, and never enough words to make sense of them. Vanessa has all her poets, and Ethan studied them too, but all their blathering amounts to nothing compared to the storm raging inside him — blinding lightning, deafening thunder, gelid water drowning his heart.

" _You_ ," he says. That's the only word he needs. "I wanted you. Just you."

"And what about the demons hiding in my heart?"

"And what about the animal caged under my skin?"

"Could we have ever kept them at bay, you think?"

"We could've unleashed them."

They both take a step forward, both reaching for the other, to touch, to feel — to scratch, even. To Ethan, it's no different from giving in to the full moon, or being maimed by a wild beast: a rush of emotions so ancient it's a wonder they've stayed repressed for so long, too powerful to be contained by a mortal coil. And perhaps that's why they had to be released not by their bodies, but by their immortal souls.

The kiss is a sting, the painful discharge of an invisible poison that burns inside of him, killing him slowly but surely. It's soft, in a way, like a mother keeping her child close to her breast moments after birth. It's rough, at its core, like killing someone with your hands tight around their neck as they beg for mercy. It's holy, like not many things in life are, sublime.

They don't know who started it, who moved first, and they don't know who'll pull away first. They don't care, can't care, won't let themselves care. Their time together is already over, their future has already become their past. Here and now is all they have left, and they'll savour it as best they can. And so they kiss, and touch, and tear at each other and taste each other and commit each other to memory.

"Is this goodbye, Vanessa?"

"It is, for now."

 

* * *

 

 _What if you slept_  
_And what if_    
_In your sleep_  
_You dreamed_  
_And what if_  
_In your dream_  
_You went to heaven_  
_And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower_  
_And what if_  
_When you awoke_  
_You had that flower in your hand_  
_Ah, what then?_

**— Samuel Taylor Coleridge (What if you slept..., date unknown)**

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed reading this fic, please consider reblogging it on [tumblr](http://florencedrunk.tumblr.com/post/169178978264/the-glory-and-the-dream-you-will-never-be-alone%0A)!


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